The athlete endorsement market is seeing a serious shift into today’s tech world. Athletes are increasingly partnering with and investing in tech companies, bringing them closer and more involved with one of the largest and fastest growing industries.

Just this week, we saw Shaquille O’Neal become an investor, partner, and global ambassador for tm:rw, a tech company best known for its "experiential" technology retail space in Times Square and innovation platform.

On top of this investment, we also saw Bryson DeChambeau acquire sports tech company Sportsbox AI, while Aaron Judge and the Yankees partnered with Legora, an AI operating system for legal professionals. Following suit(s), Harvey, another AI legal platform, announced their partnership with the Texas Rangers.

Companies want partners who can offer credibility and support growth in both the product and audience, and sports entities require modern solutions to modern problems. Seeing as tech and sports have become much further intertwined in recent years, the contribution from athletes as the core of that product is essential.

Alignment is shown authentically when athletes work within a company, rather than taking cash to be a face for its promotion. By having a stake in the ecosystem around which they work or want to be involved in, the potential for authentic mutual growth is increased and can be more straightforward.

I recently attended the opening of the Fountain Life Houston. For those of you that don't know, Fountain Life is a longevity clinic with notable founders such as Peter Diamandis and Tony Robbins. It was fascinating. There's a lot to cover there, but the event got me thinking specifically about expert involvement in health and wellness companies. You see many startups adopt this approach: meaningful involvement from an MD, health expert, or even a thought leader. I could list every big time health startup with a renowned MD as a founder, board member, or advisor, but that would cover about 5 newsletters and Noah would be angry. So instead, here's the main takeaway: MD involvement adds legitimacy to these companies. It's obvious right? A stamp of approval from a doctor, even better if they are meaningfully involved and drive research or product insights.

The key here is meaningfully involved. I can't speak for every company, but for A&A, we took this quite seriously. We look at health tech companies all the time. Whether you like it or not, sports will always be intertwined with health and health technology. I am not the first to make the announcement of Ryan Cudahy joining Athletes and Assets as a Doctor in Residence, but I will tell you why I am particularly fired up. Ryan is a sports medicine physician based in San Francisco, serves as team physician for the San Francisco Giants, and holds that same role across three Bay Area universities. He recently wrote Train Right: Doctor's Orders for Healthy Fitness, a science-backed breakdown of how athletes and everyday people should actually be training.

Ryan has already been on calls and worked with us directly to improve our diligence process. I have always valued using experts in my diligence process, especially in a space as complex as health and wellness. Evaluating FDA approval, clinical and pre-clinical trials, and overall human efficacy is no small task and we want to ensure we are providing the best companies and information to our platform users. Ryan has already gone above and beyond and I am quite keen to see how he continues to help A&A level up.

Here’s my question to fellow companies. You can put an MD as a board member, advisor, or something of the sort, but how are they actively helping you and your business succeed?

Squad, Noah here. We’ve heard a lot of athletes having trouble with handling the amount of connections they acquire during the course of their careers. Few are taught proper follow-up etiquette, what to say, when to reach out. Fear no more.

Our AI-powered networking tool is live!! Athletes can use Athletes & Assets™ to put in the contact info of anyone they meet in their own database and set reminder with a custom follow up message our LLM creates…

No more ghosting. No more bad practices. Follow up. Seize partnerships and rise to the occasion!

Truely Cereal is a protein cereal brand offering 18 grams of protein sourced from non-GMO whey and casein, sweetened with organic cane sugar and monkfruit and made with prebiotic fibre from chicory root. Watch Noah’s interview with co-founder of the brand, Eoin Carroll, here:

Why should athletes care?

Protein cereal sits at the intersection of performance and convenience, giving athletes more variety and accessibility to protein consumption. Truely Cereal, building “the quarterback of cereal”, offers a functional product that aligns with athletes in both fitness and lifestyle.